Bonjour, mademoiselle ... I have returned from the sensible land of anti-war, brie for breakfast and the morning after pro-choice pill. <g>
I see that protests against all Bush does are in full throttle.
The last statement in this news is the most important to me. I'm wondering if we will see a resurgence of women dying in childbirth circa 150 years ago.
Federal Judge Blocks Late-Term Abortion Ban
The Associated Press
Thursday 06 November 2003
LINCOLN, Neb. - A federal judge blocked implementation of a federal ban
on certain late-term abortions Wednesday, less than an hour after President
Bush signed the measure into law.
"Congress and the president ignored the Supreme Court and women's
health in enacting this law," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for
Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit to block the law.
"The Nebraska court's order will protect doctors from facing prison for
providing their patients with the best medical care."
U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf issued a temporary restraining order,
citing concerns that the law did not contain an exception to the ban for
preserving the health of a woman seeking the abortion.
"While ... Congress found that a health exception is not needed, it is, at
the very least, problematic whether I should defer to such a conclusion when
the Supreme Court has found otherwise," Kopf said.
The judge stopped short of prohibiting the new law from being enforced
nationwide.
He said his order would apply only to the four doctors who filed the lawsuit
in Nebraska and their "colleagues, employees and entities ... with whom
plaintiffs work, teach, supervise or refer" patients.
The four are: Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who practices in Bellevue, Neb. and is
also licensed in Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
and Wisconsin; Dr. William Fitzhugh, who is licensed to practice in Virginia;
Dr. William Knorr, medical director and co-owner of the Savannah Women's
Medical Clinic in Savannah, Ga., and also licensed in Alabama, South
Carolina and New York; and Dr. Jill Vibhakar, who practices medicine at
Emma Goldman Clinic for Women and at the University of Iowa College of
Medicine Hospital in Iowa City, Iowa.
"This will prevent the (U.S.) Attorney General and his staff from using this
act against me, my patients, all physicians that I refer to and all physicians
that refer to me," Carhart said.
Kopf did not immediately schedule the next hearing in the case, at which
time he could decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction against
implementation of the law.
The judge's ruling followed a three-hour hearing in a lawsuit brought by
abortion supporters trying to block the ban. The four doctors sought to block
the ban of the procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion.
In making his ruling, Kopf referred to a legal challenge from Carhart that led
to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Nebraska's partial-birth abortion ban
in 2000. The high court said the Nebraska law and others like it were an
"undue burden" on women's rights.
"The Supreme Court, citing factual findings of eight different trial judges,
appointed by four different presidents, and the considered opinion of the
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, has found a very
similar law unconstitutional because it banned `partial-birth abortions' with
the requisite exception from the preservation of the health of the woman,"
Kopf said.
Meanwhile, federal judges in New York and San Francisco are scheduled
to soon hear arguments in similar challenges to the ban by Planned
Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union.
At the White House, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said the president
believes the new law will be upheld.
"We believe it is constitutional and you could expect that we would
vigorously defend this law in the courts," McClellan said.
Judge Kopf voiced his concerns at the start of the hearing. "It seems to me
the law is highly suspect, if not a per se violation of the Constitution," he
said.
U.S. Justice Department attorney Anthony Coppolino told Kopf that he
should show deference to Congress' findings that the abortion procedure has
not been studied enough to prove it's necessary.
"We ask that you give consideration to the deep concerns that were
expressed by Congress," Coppolino said. "It is an abhorrent and useless
procedure."
Kopf said he could find no record of a doctor who performs abortions in the
second and third trimesters testifying before Congress on late-term
abortions. "Isn't that important if Congress was really interested in knowing
about this procedure?" Kopf said.
The law also appears to have a "serious vagueness problem," Kopf said.
Priscilla Smith, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said
that if the law is allowed to take effect "physicians across the country will
risk imprisonment for providing abortion care in accordance with their best
medical judgment."
The ban defines so-called partial-birth abortion as delivery of a fetus "until,
in the case of a headfirst presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the
body of the mother, or, in the case of the breech presentation, any part of
the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother for the
purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially
delivered living fetus."
Carhart said the method is one of the safest abortion procedures because
it reduces the risk of leaving parts of the fetus inside the woman.
The procedure is used most often in cases where the woman has
developed heart disease, diabetes or other life-threatening ailments.<b\> |
